


Burnt The Topless Towers

by Manna_di_San_Nicola



Series: That's The Power Of My Glorious Goodies [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Bondage, Choking, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Faustian Bargain, Id Fic, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Self-Sacrifice, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 18:55:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7450342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manna_di_San_Nicola/pseuds/Manna_di_San_Nicola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gilmore gets an unexpected late night visitor, which is only the beginning of how unexpected things become. Title from Doctor Faustus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burnt The Topless Towers

The knock came at an hour later than he had seen in quite some time. It wasn’t that Gilmore was opposed to burning the midnight oil, au contraire, but the damage inflicted by silly acts of heroism like throwing yourself at a dragon powerful and pompous enough to have a nom de guerre had made resting a priority (a priority enforced by his petite nursemaids). But that day in Whitestone had been a complicated one – thanks to a certain half-elf sneaking back into his life. Out of sight had been out of mind and seeing Vax’ildan in the strangely feather-adorned flesh had brought back the old all night worries. What if his... no, not his... what if the rogue wasn’t as lucky as Gilmore had been and fell against Thordak or even one of his cohorts? 

That very luck, it seemed, ran out when he answered the door. Speak of the devil...

“Hey, Gil.”

At least he was out of those dreary feathers.

Like a cantrip would wipe away dust, Gilmore hid his surprise in favour of a smile. “Vax’ildan, dearest!” He stepped away from the doorway, sweeping his robe-covered arm inward and wishing he had less flimsy nightclothes. “Make yourself at home.” He did not look backward as he moved into his kitchen, lest he wake from whatever dream he’d stumbled into. A flick of the wrist had his kettle steaming and Gilmore frowning at his own enthusiasm. He wasn’t a fresh-faced youth – he could control his magic and he could control himself to be the friend Vax needed. “Tea? Something stronger?”

Vax must have moved to the parlour, silently as ever, for his voice was closer than the front door. “Nothing to drink for me, thanks.” As Gilmore readied a cup for himself, he tried to let the sound of pouring water and the sight of rising steam distract him from petty worries of whether his living quarters were adequately tidy. “I hope I didn’t wake you – I know it’s late.” 

Gilmore barked out a laugh as he sauntered in, his eyes affixed to his cup so they didn’t affix to Vax’s smile and his legs spread casually on Gilmore’s settee. “You wouldn’t come if it wasn’t important enough to risk your companions teasing you about sneaking off for a ‘midnight rendezvous’ with me.” He sat next to Vax and took a sip of his spiced tea. “Besides, sleep is for people who don’t know how to have fun.” He hesitated for a second before winking, hoping it wasn’t too familiar. 

Vax clearly had no such concerns, as he just kept smiling and staring at Gilmore like he was something to devour. All he could do in reply was clear his throat and have another mouthful of tea. What was life without a few trials here and there? 

“Now, then, I’d hate to keep you, since it is late. What can I do for you, Vax?”

“Just listen.” Listening was easy. He didn’t even strictly need to look at Vax to listen to him. Yet his eyes remained fixed on Vax’s once they met. "So much has changed, within and without. This world may well be on the verge of total collapse or rebirth. I shouldn’t be surprised that I’ve changed too, after all I’ve endured.” Gilmore thought to protest, to reassure, but he could hardly deny something was different when Vax... Well, Vax had always looked at him with interest, he wasn’t so modest as to deny, but never with raw predatory want. “I never expected to. When I came back, I thought I knew already what I wanted. But seeing you... seeing you changed everything. I know, without a doubt, what I want now.”

Any other man and Gilmore would have known those words would lead to a body straddling his, lips pushing against his own. That was Vax’ildan, wasn’t it, to make the expected into a surprise. As always, he slipped like a dagger past Gilmore’s shields even in the way he slipped his fingers under Gilmore’s silken robe and pushed it down his shoulders.

Yet...

Surviving a dragon’s claws was nothing compared to the strength it took for Gilmore to push Vax off of his lap. He laughed in surprise as he went, looking up from the floor as Gilmore extended a hand threateningly. The heat stayed in his eyes, the hunger. 

“Who are you?”

The thing wearing Vax’s face laughed again when Gilmore’s thick fingers began to spark purple. His teeth seemed sharper suddenly, his eyes a bit more golden (cat-like, almost) than dark. “What gave it away? Did I laugh too much? Show too many signs of life?” 

“I’m a salesman myself – I know how to recognize when an offer is too good to be true.” With that, the purple sparks flung outwards, encircling the man or beast as Gilmore muttered the incantation of a Hold Monster spell. He could only hope that would wipe the smug grin from that stolen handsome face. 

Unfortunately, it did no such thing. Indeed, the being stood without a care in the world as if it hadn’t even needed to fight the spell off. True fear began to creep up Gilmore’s spine, pebbling over his exposed skin. What had he invited past his threshold? And what had it done to Vax? 

“My turn, glorious Gilmore. Tie yourself to your bed for me.”

On the one hand, that voice giving him commands set a fire low in his belly. On the other, Gilmore was seasoned enough to know a Suggestion when he heard it. Even as his limbs rushed to obey, part of his mind screamed and snarled. Perhaps it was selfish, even cowardly, but he didn’t want to die so off-handedly, alone and without purpose. 

Maybe he should have spent more time learning spells without somatic components. 

Lost in his fears, it was as if he blinked and he’d done what the thing commanded – each limb tied to a post of his bed with one of his robes. He hadn’t even bothered to cover himself back up. This, it seemed, was no less what the creature wanted than Gilmore bound in the first place, for it straddled his splayed thighs with Vax’s legs and ran his fingers through the hair on Gilmore’s chest. It hadn’t stopped smiling for an instant.

“Since you insist on putting business before pleasure, let us talk frankly.” It shook Vax’ildan’s long hair and, as though it had never been tied, the black tresses spilled out like ink and tickled Gilmore’s belly. “Your beloved remains alive and unharmed.”

“You lie.” 

“Frequently, but not tonight. I told you, Shaun Gilmore, that I had plans and you changed them. I craved Vax’ildan’s death, planned for an eternity to slit his throat as he’d done mine and the throats of his friends besides – yours included.” One of Vax’s hands slid up Gilmore’s chest to cup his throat, the thumb stroking at his jaw. It felt strangely sharp, more like claws than fingers. “But death is too simple, too wanting a punishment for what was done to me. It chaffed, not knowing how to truly strike at his heart, but I was willing to accept my limitations.”

Gilmore chuckled without humour, as much to try and dislodge the hand on his neck as to show the stupidity of this thing’s reasoning. “So you’ve decided just killing me will be enough to torment Vax forever?” He would take it over knowing that the rest of Vox Machina would die, certainly, but the creature clearly overestimated his worth to Vax. “Get on with it, then. Spare me your gloating.” 

It shook Vax’s head, looking amused by his ignorance. “I walk through the Hells as you walk through the streets of this charming city. I know torment. To torture a thief, steal that which he treasures and wear it with pride.” It leaned in, a breath away from Gilmore’s lips, Vax’s hair curtaining them from the world like a dark mirror of every feverish dream Gilmore had ever had. “I will see you beg to be stolen, Shaun Gilmore. I will make you truly glorious. Vax’ildan will see you at my side, free from your petty mortal fetters, and know that he is why I transformed you.” 

“Try and you will know torment, I can promise you that.”

Its fingers slid off of his neck back down his chest, tingling on his skin as they went. Vax’s lips kissed the side of his mouth, then the other. Like a fresh Suggestion had been cast, Gilmore’s body began to respond against his mind’s advising. 

“Stop this...” The words were weaker than he’d wanted, more breath than command. They accordingly had as much effect on the thing atop him, which moved Vax’s lips to the pulsing vein of his throat and suckled at the skin. 

“Why, Gil?” He met its eyes again and they were the dark of Vax’s. Its voice had returned to the cadences of Vax’s, clearly mocking him with a fresh performance. “Why should I stop when you’ve been wanting for so long? Let me give you everything. Tell me I can give you everything.”

Part of Gilmore grasped at this – clearly, the creature was a devil, with its allusions to the Hells and its desire for his consent. If he said yes to anything, it was likely to consider it a contract struck. 

“Never.”

That was what he tried to say, in any case. Vax’s lips were on his before the word was half out, a rough tongue slipped into his mouth to swallow his protests like they were sweets. Gilmore’s body remembered the last time he had felt this kiss, just after Vax’ildan had told him that they would never be. 

The devil was right. It had been so long... By the gods, it had been so long since he’d let go, since he’d felt free enough of love-sickness to just share a night with someone without any more meaning but passion and the heat of entwined bodies. Saving himself like a cleric who’d sworn off lust for his god, sacrificing his body on Vax’s altar, and for what? 

All his devotion clearly hadn’t saved him when the Hells came calling. 

He tried to shake his head, clear the fog that was billowing in, but the beast had taken hold of his face to deepen its kiss. It tasted so distinctly and undeniably Vax, more like a dream of things Gilmore had associated with him than the actual taste of a living being, that it felt like a mockery. Yet, without a moment’s peace to collect his thoughts, it felt so difficult to remember to fight it. It had to be a charm. Surely, it was a charm, because he refused to believe that he was so starved for touch as to lose his mind to a devil’s silver tongue. 

“You are so beautiful. So vibrant. Vax’ildan’s folly is my gain - it takes an immortal to truly appreciate the finest things in life.” Something crept across Gilmore’s neck, soft and smooth like... no, it was silk – the belt from one of the robes he’d tied himself with. The devil must have possessed some sort of power to move small objects – Mage Hand, perhaps. “If I still had my Velvet Cabaret, I would give you a proper collar of gold and jewels. For now...” 

The belt tightened around his throat. 

The spots of black in his vision were distraction enough for Gilmore to miss when the hands moved from his face, but it was impossible to ignore a hand wrapping around his cock. He squirmed and writhed at the tight grip and the way it seemed to shift. It felt like a palm one instant, the back of the hand the next, over and over without pattern or time for him to steel himself. 

Then the belt tightened again. The limit on his breath made every touch a thousand times more intense, even as the fear grew that the rakshasa (it had to be a rakshasa with those hands) would grow bored and simply kill him. 

“Open yourself to me, Shaun Gilmore. Give me yourself, body and soul, and I will give you the world.” 

The devil’s claws raked down his chest and the visions Gilmore had read about, the curse of the rakshasa, began. But they weren’t visions of torment – that was to say, not his torment. He saw a reweaving of his battle against the Cinder King, ending with his vibrant magic slicing the dragon’s head from its neck. He saw a walled city, pristine and beautiful, and he saw himself radiant and terrible and levelling it down to its very foundation. He saw himself with power he had never dreamed a mortal could possess. 

He didn’t want power.

When he shook the dreams away, Gilmore found his night robe completely open and the rakshasa riding his cock. Vax’s face was tossed back in ecstasy, his hips rolling over Gilmore’s. With impossible flexibility, such that Gilmore’s cock twitched within him at the possibilities, the rakshasa leaned forward and licked up the blood its claws had freed.

Vax’s face smiled with the rakshasa’s mockery. “No, of course not. You’re so very good, sweet Shaun. But power...” He felt the devil clench around him. “Power has so many applications. With all the knowledge I could offer you, think of how you could keep this place safe – keep these people safe.” The devil brushed its fingers over his lips. “Why, it would barely be a sacrifice at all – you barely believe in your soul. You’re asking it yourself – ‘am I so selfish as to put myself before all those precious lives? Before the children?’”

No devil would accept a rejection after so many offerings. Gilmore knew enough about Hell to know that accepting might doom him, but refusing this thing’s obsession while it was fixed upon him would doom everyone in Whitestone. He wasn’t worth that – he couldn’t even pretend to believe it. 

It laughed as it heard his thoughts. “There we are. Add bitter to the sweet and the deal seems so more reasonable, doesn’t it? Mortals.” It whispered hotly in his ear. “Before I take you back to Hell, Shaun Gilmore, I’ll make a proper decadent of you.” 

“I won’t hurt him.” He was in no position to negotiate, perhaps, but he would not budge on those terms. “I won’t hurt them.” 

The rest felt like a formality after that. The rakshasa could smell his defeat as surely as his sweat. “I would never ask.” Gilmore knew the nature of fine print – the rakshasa would only promise never to ask if it thought it could drive Gilmore to think it was his own idea. “Now... say yes.”

“Yes. I’m yours, body and soul.”

It sealed the pact with a rough kiss, teeth not even feigning the appearance of such. Gilmore could taste his own blood on the rakshasa’s rough tongue. When it pulled away and gave a blood-stained smile with Vax’s lips, exhausted and desperate as he was, it was enough to finish him.

Tiger eyes looked down at him as his chest heaved. “I look forward to working with you, Shaun Gilmore. I have a feeling... it will be glorious.”


End file.
